Free ELISSA Youth Seamanship Program Begins Saturday, September 15

ELISSA Youth Seamanship Program

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 11, 2007
CONTACT: Molly Dannenmaier
Director of Marketing and Public Relations,
409-765-7834

Texas Seaport Museum’s annual Youth Seamanship Training Program aboard ELISSA, the Official Tall Ship of Texas, begins with an orientation session Saturday, September 15, at 9 a.m. Any interested person between the ages of 11 to 17 is invited to attend the orientation with no obligation for further participation. Youth who join the 129-year-old ship’s volunteer crew not only learn the skills required to sail this ship, they also become part of the team that keeps her in seaworthy condition.

Parents or guardians should attend with their children the sign-up session from 9 to 9:30 a.m., along with the orientation session from 9:30 to 10 a.m., and the parent question and answer session from 10 to 10:30—all to be held in the Texas Seaport Museum Theater. During orientation, parents and children will learn about the original restoration of ELISSA 25 years ago, and will have the opportunity to find out how youth seamanship training is structured and what to expect.

While the parents are beginning their question and answer session at 10 a.m., the youth will be dispatched to training onboard the ship—continuing until 4 p.m. All the Saturday seamanship training sessions begin at 9 a.m. and end at 4 p.m., during which time youth participants are not permitted to leave the site. Youth are encouraged to bring a sack lunch. For those children and parents who are unable to attend the first session, sign-up will still be available at the second session of the program, Saturday, September 29. The Texas Seaport Museum is located at 21st and Harborside Drive on Galveston Island. ELISSA is docked next to the museum.

Those children who go on to participate in the 14-session program become an integral part of the ELISSA crew. (Participants are required to attend at least 10 of 14 every-other-week sessions.) Children who complete the program will have the opportunity to serve as crew members when ELISSA sails in the spring. The seamanship training program is free of charge (except for the purchase of a Youth Crew shirt), but requires a commitment of time to attend at least the 10 mandatory sessions. The sessions are held every other Saturday running through mid-March.

Participants in ELISSA's Youth Seamanship are introduced to and invited to join a local community that for a quarter of a century has been looking after a 129-year-old artifact representing a technology developed over hundreds of years of contest and cooperation with wind and sea. For area youth, it is an opportunity to work with experienced staff and volunteers, learning new skills and building in themselves the strengths of self-reliance and teamwork that seamanship requires and that will serve them well in their lives to come.

Youth Seamanship participants quickly come to understand that learning to climb aloft and loose a sail or steer or haul on the right rope are only part of harnessing the wind. What the ELISSA staff and volunteers, young and old, have been engaged in since the vessel's restoration is no less than keeping the ship alive. Chipping rust and painting, sanding and varnishing, overhauling the rigging: all are as much a part of what a seaman does as operating the ship under sail. That's why, a few years ago, the name of the program was changed from "sail training" to "seamanship training."

This is the sailors’ life Youth Seamanship trainees are invited to join. For more information or the complete schedule for the Youth Seamanship training program, contact John Schaumburg or Christine Hayes at the Texas Seaport Museum, 409-763-1877. For more information about ELISSA, go to www.galvestonhistory.org or email elissa@galvestonhistory.org

ELISSA Youth Seamanship Training
Class Schedule 2007 -2008

Class I September 15, 2007 Orientation & Sign up
Class II September 29, 2007
Class III October 13, 2007
Class IV October 27, 2007
Class V November 10, 2007
Class VI December 8, 2007
Class VII January 12, 2008
Class VIII January 26, 2008
Class IX February 9, 2008
Class X February 16, 2008*
Class XI February 23, 2007
Class XII March 1, 2007**
Class XIII March 8, 2007**
Class XIV March 15, 2007**

Sailing date will most likely be on Thursday, March 25, 2007.

Notes:

* Class to be held on the same day as ELISSA's adult crew.

** The youth will be with adult mentors at this class.

Classes will begin at 9 a.m. and end at 4 p.m..

There will be a youth crew overnight the night before sailing on Wednesday March 24, 2007.